


Almost Normal

by manic_intent



Series: Palimpsest [2]
Category: RED (2010), Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, That AU where Q is a CIA agent, and Frank Moses isn't really cut out to be a counsellor, and young people should get their own shit together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:23:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU where Q is a CIA agent - Post-Palimpsest, tying up some loose ends] Tinker and James break up, make up, and break up again. It's unhealthy at first, and then it isn't, and nothing's perfect anyway, even in paradise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Because some readers asked for a bit more. My writing for one shots after the 'groundwork' fic has been done tends to be somewhat looser, and I'm a little less concerned about whether the reader is familiar with all the fandoms in question. Again, if you have time and you haven't seen RED, give it a go! ^^ It's a highly entertaining film, and there's eye candy in the form of Karl Urban, if you need that. 
> 
> But for the purposes of this fic, the [[RED character trailer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onSel7RBEvA)] is probably enough introduction for people not familiar with RED.

I.

Their first breakup is a sorry business, messy, with far more things left unsaid than James would have preferred, and he spends almost an entire day sitting by the window in the living room of his - their - apartment in Paris, drinking scotch and smoking until the nicotine and alcohol lull into one slow and dizzy burn. He vaguely recalls eating something from the fridge, because of his ingrained training, and he supposes that he should really be feeling angry, or upset, or that maddening mindless surge of grief-rage-pain that had burned in him after Vesper's death until it too had died, leaving ice and steel in its wake.

Instead, James smokes, and feels primed on the edge, like a perched hawk, waiting, not quite lost, not quite conscious, all of his senses focused on his phone, his empty inbox, the door, the road. If Tinker doesn't come back, it occurs to James, dimly, slowly, that he'll probably wait here by the window forever until his lungs finally give out. 

It also occurs to James that this reaction possibly isn't normal, but nothing about him has been normal for a while, and only his training makes him mark the change of the days. He's almost out of cigarettes by the time there's a knock on the door, and James blinks and stumbles a little in his haste to get to it. He glances through the peephole, then closes his eyes and turns around, pressing his shoulder against the door. "Go away, Tailor."

"Can't do." Frank Moses' voice drifts back, muffled, urbane.

James rubs a palm over his face. "You're here to kill me?" His training makes him remember where he placed his gun - an unlicensed Walther - over at the kitchen counter. There's a hat stand to his right that he could use. If he's quick, he can make it around the wall to the kitchenette, which can serve for cover. He finds that he doesn't really care.

"Nope. Son, are you going to open this door or not? I don't want to have to break it." 

James reflects that he hasn't been called 'son' by anyone in well over twenty years, and wordlessly undoes the security chain, unlocking the door and padding back to the window. He settles back into the chair by the time one of the most dangerous agents the CIA had ever produced - and failed to 'retire' permanently - lets himself into the flat and glances around, methodical and slow, trained, wrinkling his nose. 

"You trying to asphyxiate yourself?"

James shrugs lightly, and exhales, glancing back out to the window. He probably looks a mess. He doesn't care. He's waiting, focused on waiting, and he's too tired.

"C'mon. We're going for a walk." Frank's tone is friendly, but James gets the feeling, instinctively, that he'll be doing this by his own free will or by some other, far more embarrassing route, even if he can't see any duct tape on Frank's immediate person, and it turns out he still has some pride after all; he stubs out his cigarette and gets back to his feet. 

It's past summer, and the Latin Quarter is quiet, the uneven stone warm under his shoes. James' mouth itches for a cigarette, and he regrets leaving the pack in the apartment. He pushes his hands into the pockets of his trousers instead, and doesn't feel like talking. Frank doesn't try conversation until they've walked over four blocks and the alcohol's worn off; then they're beside the Seine, against the stone rail, and James watches pretty, fashionable women glide past on their heeled boots, chattering in French. The women don't give either of them a second glance, which is a little unsettling, given his usual experience with pretty, fashionable women. James thinks that he probably looks as much like death as he feels. 

"Right," Frank actually looks a little uncomfortable, which serves to draw James' curiosity where the home intrusion didn't. "I've been... told... to tell you that you're in the wrong, and you shouldn't have done what you did, that sort of thing." 

James manages a faint grin. "You disagree."

"Eh," Frank doesn't meet his eyes, instead studying the stretch of the river, "I probably would've done the same. This life," he gestures a little helplessly at themselves, at the world, "It changes us. The things that made us very good at what we did, all that focus, that obsessiveness, that tendency to run with our gut feeling, they make us fucking horrible at the bit that comes after."

"Which is?"

"Retiring. Growing old. Becoming normal." 

James eyes Frank with a little surprise. This conversation isn't exactly going the way he thought that it would. "How do you cope?" he asks, finally. "How did you change?"

"I didn't. I don't think it's possible. We're old. Can't learn new tricks." Frank shrugs. "But you can learn to let a few things go. Or try. Sometimes just trying is good enough, at least with Sarah. It should be easier with Quinn. He's a field agent.... he's _Tinker_. And he grew up in the life; his momma never saw the point of shielding him from any of it."

"And if Sarah had grown up 'in the life', if she was in the Circus, and she had gone on a field mission, would you have let her go by herself?"

"Well, son," Frank offers him a quick grin, "The difference between you and me is, I wouldn't have gotten caught while I was tailing her." 

James snorts, which turns into a laugh when Frank starts to chuckle, and he feels a little less like death by the time they run out of breath and Frank seems dangerously close to wheezing. "I didn't intend to get caught."

"I'll give you a hint," Frank notes dryly. "He has this trick. If you have phones, pagers, any electronic doodads on you, he can place you. You want to follow him, you do it blind."

That explained the Polaroid photo on Tinker's MI6 file. "Good to know," James notes, then he smiles thinly. "I thought you were on his side."

"I am. Always have been. I still owe his momma, and he'd always been a good kid." Frank leans back further, crossing his legs, for all the world an ageing American tourist in his gray shirt and fading black denim jeans. "But I guess I can sympathize. See, for people like us, if we're really unlucky, we'll meet someone we go crazy over when we're young, and new to the life. Almost inevitably, it'll go batshit fucking wrong, because we're too young to know how to handle it, because the life's dangerous to the young and inexperienced, let alone the people we love. Right?"

"Right." James wishes that he has a cigarette, his fingers curling, a little surprised to realize that he's still too buzzed on nicotine or still too mired in his bleak mood for older memories. 

"So we cut ourselves away or burn out. Those of us who cut away learn how to adapt to the life. We learn not to care too much about other people, because losing things when we have so much power in our own hands feels unbearable. Those of us who become the best do it by forgetting how to be normal. We become weapons instead."

"Right," James agrees, if with a twist to his mouth, growing a little bored. "And?"

"And if we're lucky - or unlucky, depending on your point of view - we survive long enough to grow old, and retire. But the few of us who are really, really lucky," Frank adds, more quietly, "Meet someone again, at that point in our lives. Someone who makes us want to be normal again, or try to be. Someone who makes us feel that waking up every morning to an endless stretch of nothing much more than reading the paper or people-watching or growing stupid little plants in jars might just be worth going through. Someone who makes us feel that maybe, turning out the lights with our guns in our mouths and the weight of a trigger under our finger for the last time isn't really such a good idea."

James thinks this over, scratching at his jaw. He hadn't considered things that far, not yet, but Frank was older than he was, been retired for longer - he supposes that after a while, with a stretch of days spent alone, bored, forgotten, 'turning out the lights' with his own gun could possibly become attractive. He isn't sure if the possessive, thorny welter of uneven emotions that he felt for Tinker was love, if he is still even capable of love, but Frank's words strike a chord. He _has_ tried. He'd played house with Tinker in Paris, not once even picking up his gun, gone to the theatre, to galleries, come home and made love; he hasn't even once been bored. 

And then Tinker had received a call from Langley, briefed about a mission in Nigeria, something about a kidnapped minister. When James had first said that he was coming along, Tinker had laughed, thinking that he was joking, as though James would joke about something like that. That conversation hadn't ended well as it was, let alone when James had followed him to Ogwashi-Uku anyway... 

It hadn't really occurred to James that Tinker would be _that_ furious. 

"And if you are lucky enough to meet someone like that," James notes mildly, "How do you let go? How can you?"

"You start with the little things," Frank suggests. "You can't lock them away somewhere forever. They're people, not pet animals. You're just going to have to learn to let go. But you won't learn how by smoking and drinking yourself to death in an apartment."

James exhales, low and rough, and he nearly flinches when Frank pats him absently on the shoulder. "Keep trying, son. I really," Frank adds wryly, "Don't like Paris. So don't make me come all the way out here again, all right?" 

James is sober enough now to notice a street camera turning to follow him as he clasps Frank's hand and heads back towards his apartment. He's too tired to wonder if he should feign surprise when he finds Tinker sitting by the window, the cigarettes and scotch cleared away; the boy watches him steadily as he closes the door, straight-backed and prim in a pinstripe charcoal suit and a white shirt, and God, James _wants_ him; wants him so much that it's a palpable shock to his system. Desire serves to clear the bleak fog in his mind where nicotine and alcohol didn't, and Tinker's pliant enough when James pulls him over, though he jerks away from a kiss.

"Brush your teeth," Tinker mutters, and wrinkles his nose. "And shower."

"With you?" James rumbles hopefully, and Tinker grimaces, though he shrugs out of his jacket when James doesn't let him go, and James' surprised at the desperate urgency vibrating through him even when he has Tinker pinned and naked against the shower wall, marking the slim curve of his arched shoulders with bites. 

Dully, he realizes that his hands are trembling, slipping over the pert flesh of Tinker's pretty arse, fumbling, until Tinker sighs and braces an arm against the shower wall, setting James' hands on his hips, taking the lotion from him, his smoky eyes distant, though he whimpers and whines loudly enough when James goes down on his knees, chasing the dip of Tinker's fingers into his arse with the flat of his tongue, catching the tight furl of muscle with the tip. He licks against and along slick fingers while Tinker curses, then starts to shiver, water sleeting over them, wet, until finally Tinker's groan of " _James_ ," seems to shake through his bones.

That desperate thorny want nearly embarrasses James when he pushes in, pulls Tinker back over his cock; he's vaguely aware of the harsh, strangled sounds he's trying to muffle against the nape of Tinker's neck, he's already so close and they haven't even started. It takes all the shreds of his self-control to push all the way deep without coming, and Tinker's low, delighted chuckle doesn't help; he can feel Tinker's pleasure vibrate against him, pressed flush against his back. James' first thrust, when Tinker relaxes, skids Tinker up against the shower wall, and the beautiful, laughing boy in his arms only grins and pushes back against him.

James fumbles over until he gets his hand around Tinker's cock, his rhythm unsteady, more savage and demanding than what James intended, and he fucks Tinker into the shower wall until his throat is raw from his groans and the water goes cold. It occurs to him briefly, when Tinker bites down against his own wrist to stifle a scream, shaking apart under James' hands, his breathing shuddering and shallow, that maybe Frank Moses' little talk hadn't really been for James' benefit, after all.

1.0.

The second time they break up is over Sherlock, of all people, which, on hindsight, is probably the most idiotic reason in the world to have a fight over. Tinker mulls over the possibility that getting shot multiple times in the chest during the last time that he was in London might have had some impact on his level of intelligence, while he, Sherlock, and John are camped out in a car, somewhere in the middle of fucking nowhere, staking out some sort of mafia safehouse.

Sherlock's asleep on the back seat, awkwardly curled up, and it's John's turn to keep watch. Tinker doesn't need much sleep when he's on a mission - sanctioned or otherwise - and spends the time hacking into the SVR database. Control wants a brief about the extent of Russian involvement with the North Korean missile exercises. 

"Sorry about this," John murmurs, his smile wry. "I'm pretty sure this isn't what you normally do." 

Tinker has to admit that an originally strange and seemingly trivial case has become unrelentingly weird, what with a stick-figure secret language, some sort of underground kidnapping smuggling syndicate and a lost horse mixed up in it all, and he does like things that are weird. "Don't mention it."

"Lestrade was busy, so we didn't have any backup. I appreciate you being here."

"Doctor Watson," Tinker drawls, "I'm sorry to break this to you, but you're really not my type."

John snorts instead of sputtering as Tinker had hoped, still watching the safehouse with the keen, constant concentration of a soldier on duty with nothing else to do, "I like being alive, thanks. Your boyfriend would shoot me."

"He's not my boyfriend. And he's in Paris." Probably smoking and drinking again. 

Tinker fought down a sigh. Family was family, he'd tried to explain to James, and besides, it wasn't really about _Sherlock_. It was... guilt, in a way, from learning about Alexei the way he had. Sherlock wouldn't care, and Alexei would have found it funny as hell, but Tinker supposed that he'd try and preserve at least _one_ cousin's life, while he could, when inattention and his own carelessness had led to the death of the other. 

John glances at him with brief surprise. "No, he's been following us around all day. I thought that you knew."

"What?" Tinker looks around sharply, but he only sees darkness. He checks his tracker on the laptop, but it hasn't registered anyone's electronic signature for a whole day other than the people they've been following, and even if James took Frank's advice- "How the hell did you pick him out?"

"I've had a lot of practice picking out people like him from a crowd." John shrugs. "Just look for signs. Other people's body language. People like Bond can't really hide very well. People instinctively sense what he is." 

This is rather embarrassing, and Tinker supposes that maybe, just maybe, he's been relying on technology a little too often. Perhaps it's time to find Frank and get a few refreshers on old-fashioned field work. Tinker isn't really sure whether he's angry or relieved that James is here after all, and it's a strange, uncomfortable feeling. He frowns, until he realizes that John is staring at him. "What?"

"Had a fight?" John asks, if kindly, and it's easy to discount John Watson, Tinker realizes, especially when he's next to someone as viciously brilliant as Sherlock. John's perceptive in his own way. 

"People fight." 

"Want to talk about it?" 

A joke about John and excellent bedside manners is on the tip of his tongue, but Tinker sighs. "It was about Sherlock, if you really have to know."

"Really?" John swallows a laugh, and glances at the back seat. Sherlock's still snoring gently. "He didn't want you to come out here to help out?"

"He was all right at first when I said that I was going to make a trip to London. It's only when I mentioned Sherlock that he started whining about it. Said it was too dangerous, that I had nearly died the last time, MI6 didn't like me, etcetera. I told him that London's hardly any more dangerous than my other assignments, the last time I was here I nearly died because _he_ shot me, and it deteriorated from there."

Tinker had eventually gotten over being shot and left to bleed out; it had taken a while, even though he had been the one to tell James to do it, even though James had probably done it only because he had known that John was close by, even though Tinker had fully expected to die. Recuperation had been long and painful, slow, and Tinker supposed that for a while, he'd actually resented the fact that James hadn't seemed to bother getting a message through to him, not even a card. Logically, he knew that James had been waiting, at least until he had retired and MI6 no longer had a hold on him, but the part of him that wasn't logical, that had been obsessed over James from the moment Tinker had first seen him, had seethed.

John considers this for a long moment, then he smiles, the edges of his eyes crinkling, and annoyed, Tinker growls, "Yes?"

"I mean, it's just... sorry," John badly stifles a laugh. "I guess it's nice to be reminded now and then that as terrifying as the both of you are, you're still very much human."

Tinker mulls this over rather resentfully, wondering whether to take offence, and John adds, wryly, "He's jealous."

"That's..." Tinker frowns. "That's insane. Sherlock's my _cousin_. And I don't even like him half the time." Sherlock was often unthinkingly unpleasant, although he did, visibly, sometimes seem to try not to be, especially when he was around John. Tinker could appreciate that. 

"But you were willing to drop everything and come to London when Sherlock called you, even though you nearly died the last time." John points out. "And when Bond asked you not to go, you went anyway." 

"Sherlock's _family_ ," Tinker stressed uncertainly. 

He hadn't grown up with any family other than his mother, and the occasional visits from her extremely eccentric frenemies from the CIA, MI6 and various scattered intelligence agencies. It hadn't been a bad way to grow up, in Tinker's opinion, although social services would probably have freaked out if they'd ever known. Acquiring family that wasn't part of what Frank tended to call 'the life' was a novelty - unlike Mycroft Holmes and Mother, Sherlock was utterly disinterested in espionage and state secrets. 

It was refreshing. 

Sherlock had nice, solvable problems that didn't usually involve matters of international security, and after Moran, they'd kept in touch - or more accurately, Sherlock seemed to have taken Tinker's efforts on his behalf as an invitation to text Tinker at any time at all in the day or night, randomly asking for free and often confidential information, as though Tinker was now his personal Google. It had been funny at the start, then a little annoying, and after a while, Tinker found that he didn't really resent it.

"I don't think that Bond understands that," John notes carefully, and Tinker remembers something mentioned by his mother, years and years ago, when he had asked after the rest of her side of the family. _Orphans make good recruits_. Fewer familial distractions. Fewer means of understanding.

"It's ridiculous," Tinker mutters, though he has a sinking feeling that John's instincts are right. "Why the hell would anyone sleep with Sherlock?"

"Oh for God's sake," Sherlock moans faintly from the back seat, "Would the both of you _please_ shut up."

"My girlfriends have sometimes told me that he's hot," John says blandly, and Tinker squirms in his seat to look over at Sherlock, who glowers at him petulantly from a fetal position.

"...No. I don't see it."

"Why did I ever think that you would be remotely useful?" Sherlock snaps, and naturally, that's when all hell breaks loose at the safehouse, and of _course_ Sherlock wants to investigate. 

A few hours later, as Tinker watches Lestrade harangue a clearly disinterested Sherlock and a somewhat contrite Watson about their extensive misunderstanding of the concept of 'citizens' arrest', while his officers lead a queue of somewhat mauled criminals to ambulances/police cars, Tinker allows James to draw him away, along the outside wall of the reinforced warehouse. The sun's slowly coming up sallow in the morning sky, and Tinker eyes James thoughtfully. Now that the violence has ebbed, James looks tired, and he can barely keep from yawning. 

"The next feasible flight back to Paris is in four hours," Tinker tries a peace offering, sounding as casual as possible as an arm circles absently around his waist and curls him close, and he leans against it, settling, warm. They never make up their fights just with words. Maybe it's because they've always been trained to trust action. 

Lips graze over his mouth, prickly; James always forgets to shave whenever Tinker isn't around - and lower, tender and slow, to his jaw. "We could stay a little longer in London, if you want. I have a flat here," James murmurs. "If you'll still like to see the National Gallery."

"I'll love to," Tinker breathes between them, his heart full and tight as they kiss until the sun climbs up.

II.

They break up for the third time as a ruse, not that it works; James reads the paper as Tinker argues over the phone with his mother, begs, whines, throws a tantrum, and finally ends with a sulky, " _Fine_ , if it'll make you that happy, I'll bring James over for Christmas," and hangs up.

"You're going to die," Tinker tells him dramatically, as he curls up over James' knees, his chin tucked over a shoulder, and James chuckles as he curls an arm around Tinker's waist. 

"Then it'll be like old times."

"You're not really taking this seriously," Tinker eyes him, scowling. "Marvin Boggs might be there. He used to be Rich Man," Tinker elaborated, when James arched an eyebrow, usually the CIA's designate for Circus operatives with a tenuous attachment to sanity and a much greater attachment to explosives. "And then there's uncle Frank. And that's only naming the people who are likely to be there. There're others. Crazier than uncle Marvin, even. There's my _mother_. It hardly ever ends well."

"Don't worry," James brushes a kiss complacently over Tinker's forehead, "We'll be fine. First class from Charles de Gaulle to New York, then to Norfolk?" 

He doesn't admit that this is totally new for him; he's never reason or opportunity to do something as relentlessly _normal_ as visiting a lover's parents - as obviously abnormal as this particular visit is probably about to turn out. Instead of dreading it, or feeling bored, James finds that he's curious. It might be the promise of mayhem, but he isn't sure. 

"It's your funeral," Tinker mutters, though he squirms closer.

In the first class suite, Tinker seems determined to try to have James' cock within him for as much of the flight as possible, drawing the slow fuck agonisingly out, and if he had been ten years younger, James would probably have happily obliged him. Now, however, he manages about two hours of Tinker's barely moving hips and lazy purrs before he flips them around and drives up into the maddening boy, pants, bites down, shakes himself apart; he lets Tinker into his mouth, sucks him deep, drinks him down, greedy. The connecting flight from New York to Norfolk is less exciting, though there's an Aston Martin waiting for them at the airport, sleek and silver, the engine purring under his touch as he wakes the beautiful car up.

"Am I missing something?" James asks mildly, as they speed out of the airport, and Tinker snorts.

"You deserve to enjoy the last days of your life."

"You're being melodramatic," James tells him, though he feels a vague kernel of self-doubt that deepens when they pull up at Eagle's Nest, Chesapeake, to see Frank Moses in the garden, arguing with none other than Control himself, of all people.

Control is a compact man with a rangy frame, his once handsome face long frozen into an eternal expression of efficient stillness, silver dusting his sideburns even though he couldn't be much more than through his early forties, if at all. He snorts when he sees them pull up into the driveway, and pulls his hands out of the pockets of his suit jacket. 

"Did you _have_ to, Tinker?"

"Mother insisted." Tinker shakes hands with Control, then James finds himself looked over briskly before Control extends a hand in his direction, his grip firm, strong. Control was once a field agent himself, if James recalls the facts, before the Dunning matter, slated to be considered for the position of Soldier whenever Leiter chose to retire. Somehow, he'd moved laterally instead. It hadn't been clear what had happened.

"Commander Bond," Control notes neutrally.

"Control."

"Just as I thought things couldn't get worse," Control mutters, clearly as melodramatic as Tinker himself, "You had to bring a 00. _The_ 00\. I'll count it a miracle if you don't burn down half of Chesapeake."

"Mother's also a 00," Tinker reminds him blithely, ignoring the latter part of Control's statement, and adds, "Are you staying for the party?"

"No. God, no. I still have family to support, and I don't enjoy getting shot," Control glowers at Tinker. "I just dropped by to try and convince Moses not to take on the Burundi contract."

Tinker glances at Frank, who shrugs. "Your mother's going too. Got to keep busy."

"Then they'll be fine, sir." 

"It's not them I'm worried about," Control grumbles. "And when are you coming back to the office?"

"I'm working from home," Tinker points out mildly. 

"You have no idea how much trouble you're causing between us and the FAID," Control snaps, then he eyes James again, as though hoping that he'd spontaneously implode, before letting out a deep sigh. "Come in to Langley if you survive the party. We should talk. Moses, this isn't over. Commander Bond, it's good to meet you."

"Happy holidays, sir," Tinker offers, and watches until Control pads back to his black sedan and drives off. "Uncle Frank, you're here early."

"Sarah wanted to help," Frank pulls a face. "Good to see you again, Jim."

"Frank." They shake hands as though they're declaring a truce, and just as they're heading up into the stately old house, a portly old man ambles out, built like a rather small bear, his dark whiskered face fighting a losing battle with silver, on his mouth the same lazy playful smile as Tinker, his eyes the same smoky green.

"Quinn."

"Father," Tinker replies, if neutrally, though he allows himself to be hugged. "This is Commander James Bond. James, this is my father, Ivan Simonov."

"I've heard of you, Commander," Ivan doesn't seem put off by Tinker's wariness in the least, shaking hands roughly with James and grinning. "We must drink vodka. And listen to some of your stories."

"I'm sure that you have plenty of your own, Mister Simonov," James notes dryly, which unfortunately seems to be an invitation for Tinker to abandon him with relief to look for his mother, and Frank shoots him a vaguely thoughtful look before ambling off, possibly to do a security sweep of the perimeter or check the daisies for terrorists. 

Oddly enough, the most normal member of Tinker's family so far turns out to be the ex-KGB spy, and James is actually starting to enjoy practicing his Russian when Tinker edges back into the living room, looking hunted. "James, you're going to have to meet my mother."

"That was the point of coming here, wasn't it?" James asks mildly, and it doesn't really help when Simanov claps him on the arm and laughs.

"Commander Bond's famous courage!"

He probably should have had that vodka after all. James allows himself to be dragged into the kitchen, which smells of pastry and something spicy on the stove, all warm oak and feminine lace and flowers, and presiding over it all, queenly beside the sink, is a woman turned imperious with age, an evidently once great beauty matured past the flush of youth to something timeless, drawn in laugh lines and crows' feet, and it's not hard to see why even a KGB agent would have been willing to die for her. 

"This is James," Tinker looks visibly resigned, and even though Victoria Winslow smiles, the smile doesn't touch her eyes, cool and calculating as they look him over.

"Charmed," she notes, finally, so very English as she presents her hand to him, and James obligingly brushes her palm with a kiss. "Quinn, why don't you go look for Frank? Dinner's almost ready."

Tinker recognises a dismissal when he sees it, clearly. "He's only just outside, mother."

"Just get out of my kitchen, dear," Victoria replies mildly, "I want to talk to James."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

"I'm not going to stab him with the butter knife," Victoria sighs. "Quinn, don't be difficult about this."

"No, you'd use a steak knife."

"I know you've had a crush on Commander Bond for years, but-"

" _Mother_ ," Tinker interrupts with a squawk, and seems capable of utter mortified embarrassment after all - to James' amusement, the boy actually flushes a bright red. 

Really now. 

"-I'm not about to eviscerate him, or whatever it is that you think that I have in mind." Victoria continues blithely, ignoring Tinker's sputtering. "Run along now, dear."

"I'll be fine," James tries to sound soothing, but his amusement probably gets through instead; Tinker glares at him furiously before storming out. "Would you like me to help you with anything, Miss Winslow?"

"Have you ever cooked anything in a kitchen before?" Victoria glides over to check on the stew.

"I'm always happy to learn something new everyday." 

"You shot my son a year or so ago, Commander. Even with a doctor on hand, it was a close call."

"Orders from M," James notes carefully, and wonders where the steak knives are kept. "You've had the same."

Victoria sighs, looking away from the pot, her arms folded under her ample chest. "And I knew better than to seek him out again. Eventually, either one of us would have received another kill order."

"I'm retired now," James points out, unsure where this is going. "So are you, and Mister Simonov sits in your living room."

Victoria eyeballs him, and she's almost as good at it as the old M, and James smiles blandly, the way he used to with any of the Ms, and waits, until she finally shakes her head. The tension in the room seems to sleet away a little, though not by very much at all, but at least Victoria's still visibly unarmed. "You'll understand that I'm concerned, particularly with your reputation."

"Any mother would be," James admits wryly.

"However, Frank has strongly recommended that I give you time," Victoria mutters, her hands curling on the edge of the kitchen bench, "And he's always been a fair judge of character, so I suppose that my rifle is going to have to rest quietly for a while longer. Welcome to the family, Commander."

"Call me James, please," James corrects, and asks, out of professional curiosity, "What rifle do you use?" which turns out to be the correct thing to say after all to a wetworks specialist; in half an hour, when Tinker peeks into the kitchen, they're still discussing the intricacies of personal preference between a L115A3 rifle and a Cheytac .408. 

James absently puts an arm around Tinker's waist, and when Tinker blinks at him, then at his mother in surprise, he frowns, and Tinker mimes a stabbing motion against James' ribs. Victoria rolls her eyes elegantly, and checks on the oven. "Help prepare the table for dinner, dear." 

"I'll help you," James suggests, and while they're laying out the cutlery in the dining room, Tinker stares at him in disbelief.

"Did she threaten you?"

"Not really." James drawls, then when Tinker looks confused, he admits, "Your 'Uncle Frank' had a word with her."

"Oh." Tinker seems caught between surprise and suspicion, and seems to be thinking it over during dinner, silent even when James squeezes his thigh surreptitiously under the table; eventually, he ends up engaging Frank's Sarah in polite conversation instead - a pretty, bubbly girl. He's uncertain why Frank seems besotted, but James supposes that nothing about love is meant to be explicable.

"That wasn't so bad," he tells Tinker later, when they're curled together in Tinker's bed. James hadn't been sure what he had been expecting to find in the room that Tinker had grown up in, but it's mostly books and stacked black and gray cardboard boxes, a desk and a wardrobe, more like a guestroom than a boy's bedroom.

Tinker huffs, rather annoyed still at being strongarmed by his mother into staying overnight rather than heading to a hotel with James, stiff in his arms. "It's not yet Christmas. Also, she threatened to shoot you."

"No, she didn't."

"Implied it. Same thing. The last time I brought someone home, she was also from the CIA. Field agent. Good record." Tinker pulled a face. "When we went back to Langley, she broke up with me, and got herself reassigned to a desk." 

"Your mother loves you."

"She's a terror."

"Also," James adds mildly, as he trails light, brushing kisses over Tinker's forehead, "Anyone who could be scared away from you so easily wouldn't deserve you."

"She went easy on _you_ ," Tinker shot back, though he relaxes, burrowing against James' neck. 

"So," James says lightly, "What was that about a crush?"

"Oh God," Tinker moans, "If you don't forget about that this instant, _I'll_ be the one eviscerating you with the butter knife." 

James' conviction that Tinker is being melodramatic about the entire business is shaken a little when Rich Man shows up hugging a stuffed pink pig toy, trailed by a handful of other old spies from the Cold War era, retired and seemingly content to reminisce over vodka and tea. Nothing explosive happens over the turkey, no one gets stabbed over the ham, and James starts to relax. Almost all the guests are in their late fifties or sixties, after all. If there's any shooting, it'll probably be laughably geriatric.

Probably.

Naturally, matters deteriorate spectacularly only later, when they're sitting in the swing at the porch and James is pleasantly distracted by the process of pulling Tinker over onto his lap: a grenade explodes somewhere around the tree line to their right.

James starts to his feet automatically, but Tinker sighs and pulls him back down. "That's just Marvin," he notes, even as James hears Frank's bellow of, " _Marvin, who told you to open the pig?_ " and that's when the gunfire starts. 

Victoria appears after a few minutes, holding Sarah firmly by the elbow. "Quinn, why don't you, James and Sarah take a walk for a while?" 

"Don't burn down the house," Tinker replies with a sigh, getting to his feet.

"Yes, dear," Victoria says absently, hitching her frock up and drawing a 9mm MP5 submachine gun from a holster strapped to her thigh. "Excuse me."

"Your mother has excellent taste in guns," James tells Tinker, as they escort a bemused Sarah down the driveway.

"Don't _you_ start."

2.0.

The fourth time that they break up, it's by proxy, and only because Mycroft is a particularly persistent sort of bloodless bastard in many ways whenever he decides that something's necessary out of matters of national security. His older cousin looks slightly annoyed when James merely lets out a huff of laughter over the intercom after his statement.

Tinker knows that sound - it means that someone's about to get hurt. 

Mycroft shuts off the intercom, and scowls when Tinker merely slouches into the armchair and grins at him. "You're hardly awarding this the gravity that it deserves."

"James will be out of that cell in two hours or so, I think."

"You rather overestimate him," Mycroft pulls a face, however, but merely steeples his fingers before his narrow nose. "In any regard, Commander Bond's abilities at escaping captivity are irrelevant. I wanted to speak only to you, and he's annoyingly persistent."

"I know." 

"Your continued... friendship with my brother," Mycroft starts, if with a grimace, "It's dangerous."

"To me, or to him, or to you?"

"Don't be obtuse, Quinn. Your status as Tinker puts you on the most wanted list of all enemy intelligence factions - and terrorist groups. This in turn puts your friends in constant grave danger, especially if you openly assist them." 

"Your brother's intelligent enough to understand that, Mycroft."

"Yes, but he has a certain... stubbornness of purpose that makes him ignore reasonable caution at the best of times," Mycroft mutters, "And I should very much prefer not to have to make you persona non grata in London." 

"That's never stopped me from visiting a country before," Tinker shoots back, with another quick grin. 

"The last time you were here against my wishes, you nearly died."

"The word is 'nearly'. And you gave the kill order, I believe. Thank you for that." 

"You survived only because you had compromised the agent in question." Mycroft retorts flatly. "The next one won't be so kind. Leave Sherlock alone, Quinn. Don't respond to his questions, don't answer his calls."

"The last time he tried to do things his own way," Quinn notes idly, "He had to jump off a building."

Mycroft's expression freezes for a moment, before he snaps, "And he survived."

"He was lucky. Eventually, he'll attract big fish again, you know it. He's not interested in petty crimes. Doctor Watson won't always be enough. What then?"

"You were never interested in Sherlock's fate before," Mycroft changes tack smoothly. "What changed? Alexei Simonov's death?"

"People change," Tinker shrugs, as casually as he can, although Mycroft's cut quick to the chase, there. "I'll be careful. He'll be careful - hopefully."

"If it was just you," Mycroft concedes, a little reluctantly, "I suppose perhaps things could have been kept under control. Commander James Bond, however, is a highly visible personage."

"His enemies are mostly dead, though."

"And," Mycroft ignores the interjection, "He seems to attract mayhem wherever he goes."

"So does Sherlock."

"Not on the Commander's scale," Mycroft retorts, and Tinker has to concede the fact. James really has a remarkable talent for causing destruction. "Just that last matter of the Norfolk contractor alone was disastrous. Bond's meant to be retired. His license to kill has been revoked-"

"If we stay subtle and keep down the damage levels," Tinker interrupts, "Would that be a sufficient compromise for you, _cousin_?" 

Mycroft scowls at him for a long moment, even if Tinker merely grins, and then he exhales loudly. "Two hours, did you say?"

"Give or take."

"Tea?"

"Delighted," Tinker agrees, and he's on his second cup of Earl's Grey by the time James strides into the Stranger's Room, looking only slightly battered. He makes a bee-line to Tinker's armchair, checking him over, then he sets his elbows against the back, leaning against the chair, nodding ironically at Mycroft.

"Mister Holmes."

"Commander Bond. I trust that the damage you did to the JIC cells wasn't irreparable."

James shrugs. "Mostly."

"Let's have a look at the National Portrait Gallery," Tinker suggests, rising to his feet, "And after that, I think my cousin's been kind enough to book us a table at the Fat Duck."

Mycroft snorts, though he reaches for his phone. "Don't tempt fate, Quinn. Good day, Commander."

"Still a cold bastard," James tells him afterwards, as they hail a cab outside the Diogenes. 

"There's nothing wrong with placing country first," Tinker replies, though he has to concede the point. Mycroft is one of the most dangerous men Tinker has ever met, in or out of the field. The world's lucky that he's channelled his considerable focus into government work - more or less. Tinker doesn't like him, but he supposes that he respects his older cousin at the least, unlike Sherlock.

"Not always," James murmurs, as Tinker reaches over to clasp and squeeze his hand, and a palm curls over the small of his back, to draw him close against the cold. Tinker presses his cheek against the knot of James' scarf, breathing out, and reaches back to lace their fingers together.


End file.
